Kizz & Tell is a combination of item #17 on my Life List (Develop an erotic fiction web site) and a continuation of the G-spot column I used to write at The Women's Colony. From fantasies to frank discussion I'm just trying to re-create a really great conversation with your friends. I hope you'll join in!

Friday, December 31, 2010

Even late in the evening on December 31st 2010 was an unfinished sentence of a year. I’d had fun with friends and family but not gone much of anywhere. My annual performance review at work had gone swimmingly, they loved me. I still only liked them as friends. I’d broken up with the friend who was a boy if you could call a conversation like this breaking up:

“So, I’ve been thinking...”

“Yeah...”

“So I guess we should probably...”

“You’re right, I guess we’ll just...”

“OK.”

“OK.”

I took a cab home and treated myself to a new dildo. The NJoy 11, actually. Totally worth it. If I’d known I would have bought it sooner. Probably broken it off with the guy sooner, too.

New Year’s Eve found me in a local average pub with some of the average locals listening to music I couldn’t identify and watching that slightly effeminate emcee who replaced Dick Clark. I missed Dick Clark.

I had been hanging out with a group of friends and neighbors but, citing babysitters, sinus infections and, I swear to God, general malaise, they’d trickled home. All of them except Danny. Now I call Danny a friend but he’s a neighbory friend. We’ve known each other for nearly a decade, as long as I’ve lived here, we’ve talked at this bar, in community board meetings, at a friend’s party and once during a volunteer event at the park. We’d notice if the other one disappeared but we wouldn’t know who to ask about it.

I suppose I could have just left, too. I could have gone home and kissed the cat at midnight and been in bed by 12:05 having disturbing dreams about Dick Clark’s ball. I didn’t have it in me, though, which was as much indicative of 2010 as anything else. So I talked to Danny and it was fine. Fine like George Carlin talked about fine. Which was all it needed to be except that by 11:30 I started to get pretty restless. Very restless. When I knew it was all too obvious that my eyes were flicking all over the joint and I was only half listening I excused myself to the ladies room.

After a little wait in line I got in there, peed, washed my hands then sat right back down on the toilet lid. It doesn’t happen to me often but every once in a while I get so wound up that I have to do something. It doesn’t even matter what but it has to be something. Options in the bathroom were pretty limited.

Have you ever just put your body, or maybe it’s your soul, on autopilot? It’s fun but disorienting and probably pretty dangerous. Out at the bar I let my soul take over.

“Hey Dan...”

“Yeah?” he was so solicitous, such a nice guy, always willing to be part of the solution.

“Can you..” I sounded almost embarrassed, “come help me with something, please?”

“Sure.” Totally affable. Surely that would get old quick. But not before 2011. He signalled to the bartender to hold our spots and followed me back to the rest room.

Purposely vague I tossed words over my shoulder, “I just can’t quite...thanks so much...shouldn’t take a minute.” Since it was about 10 minutes to midnight the line to the bathroom had disappeared. I slipped right in, flattened myself against the wall so Danny could squeeze in then closed the door behind me.

It wasn’t the smoothest introduction to a kiss I’ve ever performed. While sweet he’s not stupid so he had to have at least a hint that something of the kind might happen but it was still pretty abrupt. He was a good kisser and he did have the grace to kiss me back which was nice of him. Not too much spit or tongue, nice relaxed feel to it.

I was an autopilot, though, and had a mission and just less than 10 minutes to accomplish it. I slid my hands down and began to figure out the details of his belt buckle. Dan kept kissing me and let me work it out, and work him slowly but surely out of a slightly twisted pair of boxer briefs. After a few long pumps in my hand I began to kneel and that’s when he stopped me.

With one hand he encouraged me to keep pumping. With the other he did his own figuring. My skirt wasn’t terribly long but the getting up and over the tights was a tiny challenge for him. Fortunately I wasn’t wearing panties. I didn’t have any clean ones.

I worried my thumb over the head of his cock and he did the same for my clit. I jumped a little and laughed. He chuckled back. He worked his other fingers over my labia and down between them getting slick and slippery. I spread my legs a little, hoping he’d take the hint and he did. He put just one finger inside and immediately I had to insist it wasn’t enough. I snaked my own hand under all those clothes and manipulated his hand until there were three of them in there to the hilt. I ground my clit against that fleshy pad of his palm and found I was rhythmically squeezing his dick. He used his free hand around me to get me back to an up and down motion, he didn’t stop the slight twisting motion I had going.

At that point, frankly, I quit paying attention to him. I knew, if I could just position his hand correctly I could get where I was going. I grabbed him by the wrist and wasn’t gentle. Even had to stand up on my tiptoes a little. His fingers couldn’t move much inside me but a little was enough. I loved the short strokes. I ground down with my pubic bone against his palm and just concentrated on coming. He moaned a little and I thought I was being derailed but with a slight turn of my hips and more pressure I was at that edge you can’t help but fall off of. One more second, I held my breath and came hard enough that my thighs quaked. A couple of seconds later my hand, covered by Danny’s and wrapped around his cock felt warm and squishy with his come.

Upstairs a cheer arose, “Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year,” Danny smiled.

“Happy New Year,” I replied a little wryly.

We shared an awkward peck on the lips and turned the water in the sink on just before another holiday patron started banging on the door.

Friday, December 17, 2010

We had a tradition in college, in law school, during that shaky first job. On the first day with snow, real snow, snow that stuck, we ditched. Getting up to call in was required. Then going back to bed could seem more decadent. At some point we’d go out, walk somewhere, make a snow angel, he’d for sure pelt me with a couple of snow balls and we’d come back home. Mostly, though, we stayed in bed. Naked.Then I landed that second job. It dangled the big, fat, sweet, juicy carrot of partnership in front of me. I got serious. I mean, I made it through law school so it’s not like I’m Bozo the Clown or anything but this promise of reward, this treadmill, it upped my serious to threat level FIRE ENGINE RED. So in the first winter of the second job when it started to snow I got up. I didn’t call in sick and go back to bed. I showered, put on pantyhose and went to work. And I felt terrible about it. “What are you doing?” he asked when I came out of the shower.“Going to work.” I said matter-of-factly. “Weather man was wrong?” he was bewildered in that sleepy way.“No.” I tried to sound rational and firm but not mean. I probably didn’t succeed.“Oh.” Two letters filled with a whole alphabet of accusation but I was paying the rent, not to mention his tuition, so what could he really say?Half the office was out that day. They lived in New Jersey or had kids who were out of school or had stayed home naked in bed. I hated them.By lunch time, given the reduced numbers in the office, I’d done all the work I could do and a good portion of the work some of the absentees should have been doing. I was itchy in my hose and resentful and, most of all, guilty. I was a grown up now, in theory I could do whatever I wanted. So I tested that theory. I sent a few more emails, made a phone call or two, gathered up my things and told the office manager I was headed home for the day. In the elevator I tried to keep a cool, Mad Men-inspired exterior but I was waiting for someone to step on at a lower floor and haul me back to my desk like a truant. I got home about two. Music was blaring through the apartment. Prince, something vintage, very sexy. For a heartstopping moment I considered leaving again. I was, inexplicably, terrified of what I was going to find even though he’d never given me reason to doubt him. I didn’t even set my bag down while I wandered down the hall and into the living room. He was pacing the carpet with a book in his hand head bobbing to the music and his mouth moving silently. I knew him well enough to know he was switching between singing along and talking out his critique of the book. It was a good bet that book was Plato.On his next turn he saw me and startled. He smiled but it was cautious and he opened the cabinet to turn the music down. Tears welled up behind my eyes and my arms felt heavy from carrying the guilt of making the boring, grown up choice. I dropped my bag and coat and went straight to him, trying to get there before the tears fell. I clung to his back like a limpet and he had the grace to reach back and cradle my head with a hand. “I’m sorry.” I whispered in his ear.“You came home early.” It was statement of fact, not of gratitude. “I missed snow day.” I sniffed, trying to be discreet. He nodded but didn’t reply for a moment. His head turned slightly toward me when he asked, “Feel bad about that?”“Yes.” I replied, very quietly. Then I slid around in front of him and kissed him. I gave it everything, too. I went in slow. I kept my mouth closed for a while, waiting to be sure he was kissing back, before I even grazed his lips with my tongue. Once I got a little of that back I pressed my whole body against him and really jammed my tongue in his mouth. I kept at him, rubbing my nipples against his chest and clutching his ass with my hands until I was honestly breathless and had to stop. I slid back down from my tiptoes and leaned my head against his chest, breathing heavily. He held me and rubbed my back. “You will, however, need to do penance.”Thinking I understood I smiled and began to sink to my knees.“Oh no no no no no.” he lifted me back up and set me apart from him. “Take all that off.” he gestured disdainfully at everything I wore and why I wore it.There is absolutely nothing sexy about taking off work clothes. You can cite Kim Basinger in 9 ½ Weeks or Demi Moore in that sexual harassment movie or anyone in Ally MacBeal but the truth of it is that your feet swell in heels and pantyhose make you look like sausage and trying to untuck a sheath from a business skirt is a symphony of tugging and wrinkles that’s hardly alluring. Once, very early in our relationship, I’d made a big deal out of stripping for him. I’d worn a special outfit with lacy lingerie beneath and put on music and lowered the lights and even watched Showgirls to prepare. I thought it had worked exactly right. He was all over me when I finished and we went three rounds before we collapsed on the bed. After a brief rest, heartbeats still a little irregular, he asked, “Why did you do all that?”“Which part?” I joked.“The big show.”“I thought you’d like it.” I was hurt and in no position to hide it.“I did. Seeing you get naked is sexy, it’s always sexy. The other stuff, though?”“Yeah?”“No offense, truly, but it was a little distracting.”“Distracting?”“Any time you’re getting naked that’s all I want to see. I don’t care how it happens, just seeing you is hot.”It was a sweet thing to say in an artless sort of way. He stuck by it for years, even when he was berating me for not making enough of an effort to treat him specially. His well-intentioned hypocrisy was nice, I guess.So I just hopped and tugged and pulled my middling expensive suit and all its accents off. Even my threadbare cotton underwear. Facing him wasn’t exactly a challenge but I was implying that he had the reins. I thought he’d tell me to do something. He liked to tell me what to do. Instead he came right up in front of me and reached between my legs. Delicately he stroked and separated and kneaded just a little. I swallowed hard to keep from crying out. I could have made as much noise as I liked but something made me want to preserve the silence. After a moment he nodded a little as if he was satisfied with his findings. I should hope so I was wet and quivering by that point. He licked his fingers off before he took me by the elbow. He steered me toward the couch. Again I assumed I knew where he was going with it. I started to sit and he tightened his grip. He took me around the side of the sofa and bent me at the waist. He made sure I kept my head low and my ass high. He even used his feet to gently tap my legs apart a little more. I thought for sure he’d use his fingers first. He just stood behind me, opened me with one hand, placed his cock with the other and pressed firmly, but not unkindly, all the way in. My moan turned into a kind of a laugh. I was used to more lead up, I wouldn’t have expected this to be so satisfying. I let my head hang down, steadied myself against the cushions and closed my eyes.He went slowly with long strokes for a little while. I felt lulled. It was like having someone rub circles on your back but so much better. Just as I was drifting away he sped up, added a little circling motion. Every so often he’d bang straight and hard into me, slapping his balls against my ass for a few strokes then go back to the circling. It was exciting and it was a great way to build up but it was maddening, a start and stop and change of ploy I couldn’t control. I rolled my forehead back and forth against the seat of the couch trying to center myself.His strokes changed again, got a little more careful and short when he leaned over me. I felt his chest hair scratching and tickling my back. It didn’t last long, though, because he was just reaching for my hand. Keeping hold of it he stood again, gave a few more of those hard strokes, then lifted my hips just a little, I had to roll up on my toes for a second. He slid my hand underneath me and set my fingertips generally near my clit. “Go on.” he told me.“It’s hard...with you moving...”“You can do it.”So I rubbed. I reached around his cock, tried to pick up some of the juices that were seeping down. I bent my knees reflexively and he had to grab both hips to keep from slipping out. I widened my stance, which made him groan a little. Then, comfortable, I rubbed in earnest. I tried to find the rhythm that went with the sensation of him inside me. It was always hard for me to concentrate on both the inside and the outside at once.“Go on.” he repeated.I held my breath for a minute, screwed my eyes shut and felt myself getting closer. My hand flew across my clit and my mouth opened, I couldn’t close it. Finally it was just words, “Mo....mmm, more, more, little..ahh....more....” and I came with a strangled version of a scream. He was still stroking steadily into me and it was nearly smashing my hand so I slid it out from under me.He started to speed up. He grabbed my hand and threaded our fingers together. He was pounding away and, for the first time in a long while, he shouted as he came and fell on top of me, barely catching himself with his hands before I got crushed. Minutes later when we finally had the muscle control to swing around and spoon on the couch I grinned and asked, “So...snowball fight?”“Mmmm, in a minute.” he murmured and closed his eyes.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

I am completely off my schedule here. I know it, I acknowledge it and I'm looking at it. Right now I'm taking it as a good thing and trying to write here when I'm inspired. I've been reading things I want to write about and stopping myself because "it's not the day for that." Well screw that!

AAG has a Blogger Anonymity Project. If anyone wants to write about something but needs a safely anonymous place to do so you can email your post to her and she'll share it in her space with none of your personal details. Today she's shared post #5 in the project and I really want you all to go read it.

The upshot is that a woman who identifies herself as polyamorous is married to a man who has mostly identified himself as monogamous. He's entering into his first relationship outside their marriage and she's working through what that means to her personally and for their marriage.

Please don't assume you know how this letter is going to play out. If you have the courage to read to the very end of the piece you'll have so much more to digest about what keeps people together and about the choices we make about love. This is a topic I roll around in my head all the time. ALL the time. It may have something Freudian to do with being an only child and always having been a partial participant in someone else's marriage or it may just be that I write a lot so I am nosy about how things work. Either way my feelings about non-monogamy aren't in the least clear cut and this woman's insight and bravery brought my understanding to a whole new level.

I would love to have all of you read this anonymous piece and to hear what you think about it. I'll be devouring the comments over there so I'll keep my eye out for you.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

I'm trying these days to be more interactive with my internet. I've been urging myself to volunteer for things, to make more comments, to speak up even when I don't think what I have to say is especially exciting. That's why I spoke up when AAG asked if anyone would like to review a web site for one of her clients. Perfect way to make a one on one connection and learn about a new site and get myself out of my shell.

Now to explain why I'm writing this review of SexForums.com four days late.

I knew nothing about the site I'd be reviewing when I agreed. That's not a bad thing, I think it's kind of good for the way I'm wired. If I don't know what it is I can't come up with all the reasons I'm not right for the job.

The first thing I needed to do was register as a member of the site (super easy, you can get away with basically entering a username and password but you can also elaborate on who you are and what you're looking for to focus the kind of suggestions the site will offer you) and forward that info back to AAG so I could be upgraded to a VIP for the duration of the review process (regularly starting at $8.33/month). I got a quick look around the site and was, predictably, overwhelmed.

Here we go back to my history. I'm unpracticed with forums. The most time I've ever spent on them has been in a fanfiction context and there I mostly skimmed the conversation and just read the stories. When I search for erotic writing or imagery online I generally fall into a rabbit hole jumping from site to site when a story, picture or blog entry strikes my fancy. I've never tried to have conversations or form connections in this way before. I've tried two internet dating sites. On one I didn't even get through the extensive registration process and the other one I got through that part and read a couple of profiles of my matches and have now lost my log in information and not signed in again. All of which makes me the best person to review SexForums, because I am about the freshest pair of eyes you can get, and the worst, because I don't even know what I'm looking for. I'm choosing to go with my strengths, though, and just tell you what I see.

I was intimidated by the site because it's new to me so I found a ton of excuses to put off my exploration and then it was Thanksgiving and then I got sick and then I was a coward and finally today after a heroic effort of memory to recall my password (Beware if you're a hotmail user, for some reason SexForums and hotmail had trouble communicating. They have my email address entered properly but it takes a long while for me to get communications and their system registers an error when it tries to send to me.) I spent a few hours poking around the site, if you'll pardon the expression, and I had a lot of fun.

The novelty factor is, for sure, in play to some extent. The way I'm wired might mean I wouldn't come back regularly but I sure would have a good time while I was there. (Note to self: write down your damn login info.) Now, I don't know how many of the readers here have ever played on a sexual social networking site before so forgive me if I'm covering familiar ground but let me give you an overview.

You create a profile and you can tell people what you're like personally, professionally and sexually (sort of like you'd do on any special interest social networking site like GoodReads or Blogher or Ning). You can then explore the forum conversations, share photographs, live chat with other users, be matched with others with like interests, start a blog or just browse other people doing all these things. It's a lot of information. I went to photos first because I happened to get an alert about the recommended photos of the day. I toured four or five pages of photos and found a little bit of everything, from explicit sexual contact to close ups of genitals to titillating but hardly X-rated boudoir shots. Something for everyone, probably, but the recommended shots were heavily weighted toward women's bodies and faces. I don't think I saw one male face and not much more than penises and balls. My settings are leaning toward straight and bi-curious settings, though, so I think if things were a little different I might have come across more man on man action and more full body shots of men.

From there I checked out a couple of people's profiles and blogs and I started to get the feeling I was too old to be playing in this pond. In my random searching most members were barely into their 20s aside from one gentleman in his 50s whose profile picture is of a tortoise. I did not know how to take that last bit at all. There was a lot of text-speak and bad grammar and poorly written come on lines that were a turn off for me. Which is not even to speak of the animated gifs and fancy emoticons.

I understood I was casting the net wide so I headed off to my profile and searched for people in my age group. First I tried men from 34 to 52 (don't know why, that was my random approximation of appropriate ages for me) living in the US and turned up three gentlemen. One of them was a guy down South who featured himself being given a blowjob in nearly every photograph. His forum posts and personal description pegged him as someone I'd walk away from in a bar even before he made his obligatory "joke" about women being barefoot, pregnant and ideally toothless. I was not encouraged. I widened my search range to ten years on either side of my own age, so 32 - 52, and scored one more guy. From his photos he's built like the governor of CA in his heyday, he's also articulate, and filled in some blanks about his career and personal feelings as well as his sexual ones. He put the hope right back in me, though I was sad that there was only one of him in my self-imposed age range. I'm realizing as I write this that I limited myself in another way that I can go back and check on. SexForums seems to have a relatively deep international base as well. If I release my geographic restrictions I might find a lot more fish in this particular sea.

What reminds me of this is another forum thread I found. I can't even begin to explain to you how I found it, I was reading recommended threads and jumping from profile to profile of people who struck my fancy so it was a rabbit hole situation again. Anyway, the thread was titled, "Numbers," and it started with a longish explanation of positional numbering and the way we visualize and articulate numbers. The conversation that follows rolls back and forth between discussions of language, math, self-esteem and sexual terms in a variety of languages. It was a fun party conversation, something I could see myself actually participating in. It felt like a good way to get to know people on a couple of levels before sharing photos of our pink parts and discussing the ways we liked to rub them. These are all discussions I love to have but I need a little lead up I guess. Later on I found a thread about anal fisting that was fascinating to me in light of my previous post on the vaginal version.

That thread lead me to the profile of a woman who I'd like to be my SexForums fairy godsister. She's young enough to be my daughter but let's go with sister for this situation. She's a young, bisexual woman who seems to have some experience as a dominatrix. She writes well and seems knowledgeable about all things sex and social media. You know how new waiters trail an experienced one before going solo, I feel like I should stalk her a bit but not in a creepy way, more in a trailing wait staff kind of way until I see where the people I click with hang out on this site and how I can best get to know them.

Now, there are some weirdnesses. For instance while I was writing this I went over to SexForums to check on a reference and found I had a message waiting. It was from a 35-year-old, US-based, straight guy and he wanted to know if my name was a combination of Kiss and Jizz. That's not the weird part. The weird bit is that he didn't show up in my previous search. Perhaps he has certain privacy shields in place that prevented it but if not then I can't really recommend the search function on the site.

All that being said I think this is an aspect of sexuality online that I'd like to explore in some more depth and this seems like a good place to do so. In a relatively short time I was able to find an area of the community where I felt comfortable and was easily able to overcome my shyness and respond to my questioner. I don't know how quick I'll be to post revealing photos of myself but I'm grateful that others don't share my reticence because I sure did like looking at them. Sometimes you run into sites with photos and videos of people who don't seem as though they're having much fun. Since all the sharing here is by members and therefore presumably consensual there's a much lighter vibe about it.

The question of pricing can't be overlooked. I was allowed a free peek into a higher level of service. If you've read here for any length of time you know that I'm notoriously worried about money and reluctant to spend on myself. If I was freer in this respect I'd own everything NJoy makes. Due to that I suspect I wouldn't have tried this without the reviewing option and I can't speak to how this pricing compares to other sites (if anyone else can speak to that please do in the comments!).

I look forward to spending more time on the site. Please let me know if you try it out, I'd be interested to hear about other experiences.

Dang, I got so wrapped up in my own thing I nearly forgot the conversation starters. Have you ever explored a site like this? If so do you have any suggestions for me? If you haven't, do you think you would? How much do you think you'd be willing to share?

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I grew up in a smallish New England town. It wasn't that I didn't know that AIDS existed, it's that it happened to other people. We were both informed and isolationist, a charming combination. Then in 1987 I came to New York City to go to college majoring in Theatre. You can't isolate yourself from AIDS in that career track, especially not in the late 80s. Fully half of my class welcome lectures involved discussion of the epidemic, safer sex practices and the fact that being young or straight or female didn't exempt you from being dead. I don't know what the statistic is now but when I moved to New York the fastest growing demographic of HIV+ people were women ages 18-24. I was 18.

In the non-linear way of memory I think of Freddie Mercury as being the first person I knew, even from afar, who had AIDS and who died from complications thereof. I just looked up the timeline, he died in 1991, so I'm sure that's not true now but he holds that sad, strange place in my heart. I'm not very current with music ever. I tend to get sidetracked into show tunes and folk and whatever I just heard on a TV show but I loved Freddie Mercury. I loved what he sounded like and how he looked and where his music went. It was just dramatic enough for an anxiety-prone, intelligent teenager with a love of the stage. I loved him no more, though, than all the people who have come into my life after he did and struggled with this disease and, ultimately, left to go join Freddie at whatever Live Aid concert is happening in the great beyond.

Whether you personally know someone who has come face to face with HIV and AIDS or not I'm willing to bet you have a Freddie Mercury. Your Freddie may be straight or Hispanic or transgendered or anything that Queen's Freddie was or wasn't but they mean something dear to you. While it's important for us to honor them in our actions all year round today, World AIDS Day, is a fine chance to step up our game. I thought of a couple of things we could do.

Have you been tested lately? The National HIV and STD testing resource gives some guidance for that emotional step. I've been tested a couple of times and, it turns out, that whether you do it in person or by mail it's never less nervewracking but it's good to know. Knowledge, as they say, is power.

I don't know enough about AIDS related charities to recommend just one to you. I like Charity Navigator, though, for when I'm choosing a resource to support. Here is a link to a search on their site of "AIDS" sorted by rating from highest to lowest. I know we're in a tough economy and hurtling into a season of sometimes irrational spending but, as they told me when I started at NYU, being [fill in any descriptor] doesn't exempt you from being dead.

It's more than a bicycle race. We are the champions who will play the game against this killer queen. Let's take this opportunity to find somebody to love before another one bites the dust. Together, I promise, we will rock you.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

This rec is not a donkey show, it wouldn't even be categorized as erotic necessarily, but it sure made me wiggle in my red velvet seat the other night.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a musical based on the life and presidency of, you may have guessed, Andrew Jackson. Dude was nuts. OK, well, passionate. He was a flip flopper! He was an idealist! He was a brute! He was a romantic! Honestly, I have to do some more research before I can even begin to guess but he certainly led a rich and varied life both in and out of politics.

Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman have styled Jackson as a bit of a rock star. They have translated his charisma and populist approach into a character equal parts John Wayne and John Mayer. Benjamin Walker dons some tight jeans, a pristine Henley and a utility belt/holster that would make Batman proud to breathe smoking hot life into our 7th president. It's heart racing, panty dampening goodness.

If sex is at least 50% in your mind then BBAJ has that all wrapped up with a leather bow as well. Jackson had complicated views on immigration, Native Americans, war, governmental size, congressional power and work-life balance. Responsible for the rehoming and outright killing of nearly the entire Native North American population he cherished a son rescued from the massacres he engineered. While he was a man of bold action he sure wasn't afraid to contradict himself. As we stand in highly charged political times now it's tempting to watch the play with an ear out for which current party is being lambasted by the production and the answer is both. Which is, I suspect, as it should be.

The ensemble for this production is diverse and brutally talented and they are leaving nothing in the tank for later. Each character (many actors play a few in the course of the show) is fully formed and beautifully nuanced. I've had Emily Young's rendition of Ten Little Indians running rampant through my head since I left the theatre on Sunday. Bryce Pinkham's portrayal of both the weasel-wearing, creeptastic Henry Clay (second from left below) and the hypocritically smoldering Black Fox have been fodder for many a naughty day dream for the past few days as well. And if laughter is your trigger you should bring something to bite down on before Jeff Hiller (second from right below) takes the stage. Every moment of broad comedy was so funny I thought Misti was going to need a change of underthings before we headed home.

There were too many empty seats in the house for my liking on Sunday night. People are missing out. So today I recommend that, if you are anywhere near Broadway, you go see this intelligent hootenanny of a musical as soon as humanly possible. If you are not close enough to do that please keep your fingers crossed that it will have a life on the touring circuit. As politically and sexually charged a piece as it is I don't know that a tour is in its stars but if Urinetown! (The Musical) can tour then anything can happen. Keep your eyes peeled for these actors and this show, I truly think you'll love it.

Tight jeans are sexy. Smoky eyes are sexy. Thigh tattoos and cowboy boots are sexy. Mostly, though, talent is sexy and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is shot through with that.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

As many of you know, the inspiration for our Monday conversations comes from a column I wrote at The Women's Colony. I plan to reprint all those posts over time. This post seemed better suited for The Resource Room than our conversations. I haven't edited out the bits that are Women's Colony-specific but there's no need to worry about those, I just like having the original pieces preserved completely on the internet. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

*****

Guidepost: Honestly I'm at a loss about how to write this guidepost. The only truthful way to explain what this post is about involves using a word that I'm willing to bet people are going to be angry to see on their front pages before they have a chance to click away from me and my ilk. Let's do it this way, if you're mad (and I think you're gonna be) please leave Mrs. G out of it, she's only one woman, send your angry e-mails to me at isabeau6 at hotmail dot com. Now, today's post is a review of some erotic (there! I said it! open your e-mail programs now!) literature. I refrain from using any objectionable language (except for the word erotica) that I know of. All photos are probably safe except that they also feature the term erotica. The links, as you might imagine, are to erotic literature so...they all depend on your definition of safe. Read on MacDuff!

It's high time I did a book review here. Many moons ago Jules pointed out that my Down the Rabbit Hole post was heavy on image-based sites. I told her then that I was baffled since I'm usually more a fan of words than of pictures where the erotic is concerned. I still am. Some day I'll do another Rabbit Hole Diving (dirty!) post and I'll focus on the words. This week, though, in honor of Jodi's focus on books, I want to talk about a newish anthology from Susie Bright, Bitten.

Full disclosure, I got this book brand spanking (hee hee) new thanks to a discount from Bright herself. That was in response to a call she put out to get positive Amazon reviews soon after the book's release date to help sales. I should publicly apologize here for not getting that done. I purchased the book immediately and even began reading it but set it down for some reason (possibly related to my dog's death but not entirely, I'm afraid) and have only just recently picked it back up and finished it. I promise to write my review now and get it posted to Amazon ASAP.

I also want to assure you that no part of this review is written to assuage any guilt I might have over my tardiness. I have been a fan of Bright and her anthologies for more than a decade and wouldn't be disrespectful enough not to be honest here. The first piece of erotic literature I came across was Anais Nin'sDelta of Venus (is this everyone's first?) and quickly on its heels Story of O (I was stage managing a somewhat avant garde version of Beauty & the Beast, the library was topical). They were good, a stark contrast to the furtively perused copies of Penthouse I'd discovered as a teen, but they are both of a certain period. While they are both explicit they still pull some kind of filmy curtain over the whole torrid affair.

Sometime after that I was fortunate enough to discover The Best American Erotica series. Here were stories where the curtain was shredded on the ground being used to mop up after orgies of really juicy words. These short stories left the questionable grammar, foolish bodily proportions and laughable coincidences of a book of Penthouse letters in the dust. I started a collection and, while it isn't quite complete, it is much beloved and as well-used as many of the characters therein. Financial woes, I'm told, brought the publishing of that series to an end. It didn't bring Susie Bright to an end, though. I read her web site and I sampled some of her other work and I like a lot of it but none so much as this new collection.

First off, just from a book lover's perspective this is a piece of art. Technically a paperback the cover has delicious weight and structure. The edges of the pages are black to hold the integrity of the cover art which makes them seem somehow more valuable. I'm petrified of snakes and yet, the slightly raised cover illustration turns my mind more to bite than flight. The publisher, Chronicle Books, clearly cares about the whole experience of bringing this volume into your bed.

Probably, though, you're more interested in the content. I'll tell you I felt a little wrong reading it on the subway. Delightfully wrong. The title isn't vulgar (like so many of mine) and the cover shows nothing remotely suggestive (unless you're a fan of Freud) so there was no reason anyone would know of the lifted skirts and swiftly unbuckled belts within, which was, frankly, a little disappointing. This was, perhaps, the only time I kind of wanted someone to read over my shoulder. The theme Bright worked with was gothic erotica so there are elements of the occult and the fantastic in each story but, to me, they all seemed deeply rooted in ordinary reality. This, I think, made every story all the more thrilling since they could be happening all around me.

There are 15 stories in this little gem. I was ready to write a glowing review before I even finished the first one, The Devil's Invisible Scissors by Sera Gamble. All the action takes place in a bar, any bar, could be the bar my bus was skimming past right then and the sex isn't front loaded. Gamble makes you wait for it. She wants to be sure you really want it before she gives in. I did. I really, really did. I wanted it so much that I'd like to thank her and Bright and all the authors by telling you about each and every tale but we just don't have time for that. I'll hit a couple of highlights and simply urge you at every turn to acquire your own copy at your earliest convenience or perhaps just slightly before that.

I've got tell you that I can't properly recommend my absolute favorite story in the collection, The Legacy by Donna George Storey, here. I simply don't have the words. Storey's heroine becomes intrigued when her boyfriend tells a group of friends about a photo book his uncle bequeathed to him. The book contained many models but all from one quite...narrow view, if you will. Her fascination with this knowledge spurs her to action and that's all I can say about that. If Storey were writing here, if Storey had used that word around which there was all that uproar, there would have been no objections, everyone would simply have begged her for more. More, Ms. Storey, please ma'am, more.

My sharper side has asked to read and re-read Cate Robertson's Half Crown Doxy. Maybe it was because thoughts of crime and punishment were at the forefront of my mind while I read. Maybe it's the appealing heroine. Probably, though, it's the way Robertson made me squirm in my seat and read through squinted eyes but read on nonetheless. She skates along the line where more cruelty would be too much, would dampen the buzz I had going by that point in the book, she threatens at every turn to step over it and yet, at least for my taste, never quite does.

I've read other things by Tsaurah Litzky, also courtesy of Bright and her talent for collecting, and haven't liked them as well as I like The Witch of Jerome Avenue. It's milder than many of the stories here. The setting is quite normal, Litzky has a talent for New York City tales, and the occult bent is very gentle. There's sex, it's entirely satisfying but in a simpler, sweeter way than Half Crown Doxy or Pandora's Other Box. This one made me nostalgic for a kind of adolescence I haven't experienced. It also made me super horny.

On that note, I've only told you about three selections from this group. If the Colony were a physical place we could have a book club meeting (with a clear, definitive warning posted on the closed door to our sound proof meeting room) about it. I'd like nothing more than to go over each story individually with you. It is, for my money, Bright's best collection. If I have any quibble it's that the pieces are laid out in such a way that the ending is ever so slightly disappointing. The Devil's Invisible Scissors is such a strong opener that tapering off with Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, a story that is heavier on harsh emotion than on sex of any kind, was something of a letdown for me. Then again, if I hadn't been just a little bit let down I wouldn't have jumped directly back in to re-read my favorites.

Perhaps you know someone who's wondering what to get you for the holidays. Perhaps that person wants to make you very happy in a variety of ways. Perhaps that person is you. Whoever it is I hope you find a copy of Bitten under the holiday icon of your choice in the coming weeks. I feel certain it will make you very merry indeed.

Monday, November 8, 2010

I've been so cold outside walking this nutty dog this weekend that I almost wrote you a post asking if you wear (or allow your partner to wear) socks while, well, knocking his or her socks off. I decided there just wasn't enough substance to that, though. Feel free to answer if you like, frankly, I'm torn. Socks aren't sexy but I hate to be cold.

Instead I was thinking about beginnings. I was ready to be all sweet and sappy and talk about first kisses and first feelings and first nights on the bear skin rug by the fire with the champagne and the strawberries and no socks. Then a funny thing happened.

While thinking about beginnings I got sideswiped by my fucking brain with thoughts of a recent ending. There's this guy (every story starts out like that) and we've been off and on and off and on and oooooofff and on for decades. Through an accident all my own we got sort of back on last spring. The first night we were together was...adequate. Where adequate means you really want to get back together with the person to erase that memory because it's totally fucking bumming you out. We met up one more time after that and in the space of less than an hour were somehow crashing and burning so historically that I ordered him out of my house and no one got laid. It was an ending. Admittedly we're people who've seen a lot of fake endings with each other over the years but, I tell you, after that I continue not to be sorry to have seen the last of him.

I will, however, be sorry for those two evenings to have been the last of it. How many movies have we seen where someone gazes off into the middle distance and says, "If only I'd known that was going to be the last time..." In this instance I'm left wondering if I'd known would I have slept with him again at all? I'm a girl who eats the crust of her toast first because the middle of the bread tastes better and I like to finish the meal with the better taste in my mouth. On the other hand a night in the sack is usually far and away better than any day digging ditches so where's the harm?

There's a cost to some old memories for sure. Even if said memories were shot with a vaseline covered filter I'd almost rather have them at the forefront than this, let's call it highly uncomplimentary, one. It makes me sad about the guy, sad about myself, sad about the whole relationship which, while nowhere near perfect, held a lot of great things for me.

I guess the conversation starter is two-pronged this chilly November morning. 1. Regarding my situation, if I'd known, do you think I would or should have gone forward? 2. Do you have any last times that make you look back (for any reason) and say, "If only I'd known..."?